Crater Lake National Park guide · 2 min read
Boat Tours and Fishing at Wizard Island
Boat tours on Crater Lake offer a view of the water from lake level. The concessioner Explor Crater Lake runs them daily through summer, and a ranger joins most trips.
Vessels and captains hold United States Coast Guard certification. Guests can choose a two-hour scenic cruise around the caldera, which does not land, or a shuttle that stops at Wizard Island.
Wizard Island is a small cinder cone volcano rising from the lake's surface. The shuttle leaves Cleetwood Cove and crosses in about 15 minutes. Once ashore, visitors have roughly three hours to climb to the summit for 360-degree views, peer into the Witches Cauldron, or swim and fish. Fumarole Bay is also worth a visit. The return trip is another 15 minutes, followed by a steep climb up the Cleetwood Cove Trail. The full outing lasts about five hours.
Anglers may fish from the Wizard Island boat docks when park boats are not using them, but must stop while a boat approaches, docks, or leaves. Every other public dock in the park is off limits to anglers, and so are the bridges along park roads. Anglers need no license anywhere inside the park, and rainbow trout and kokanee salmon from the lake have no size minimums or catch limits. Only artificial lures without organic material are permitted, because live or dead bait such as worms could carry non-native organisms into the lake and streams.
Sun Creek and Lost Creek are closed to anglers because they are home to bull trout, a native and threatened fish. Every other stream in the park is open for fishing, and any bull trout caught there must be released. Boat tours are suspended while crews carry out a major overhaul of the Cleetwood Cove Trail and the facilities along the shore, and Wizard Island cannot be reached during that work. Since the trail is the only legal route to the shore, shore anglers should plan ahead.
